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Topic: Ghost Towns (Read 3958 times)

So the "mood of the country" can be firmly placed on a number of factors:

1) Fear mongering by certain TV personalities who seemingly have little social responsibility .2) Gross exaggerations by the media (eg., one million demonstrators vs. a more realistic 70 to 80K)3) Gross exaggerations by bloggers on the internet including overemphasis of Obama's African parentage and his father's Muslim beliefs.4) Intrinsic racism in America which causes a festering of dissatisfaction with a fine President whose skin happens to be dark.5) Vast discontentment with the economy, including massive layoffs and losses in jobs, now being laid at the feet of present government desperately trying to turn things around.6) Increasing discontent with Afghan war and America's participation in it.7) Discontentment with movement of jobs and manufacturing overseas.

So the "mood of the country" can be firmly placed on a number of factors:

1) Fear mongering by certain TV personalities who seemingly have little social responsibility .2) Gross exaggerations by the media (eg., one million demonstrators vs. a more realistic 70 to 80K)3) Gross exaggerations by bloggers on the internet including overemphasis of Obama's African parentage and his father's Muslim beliefs.4) Intrinsic racism in America which causes a festering of dissatisfaction with a fine President whose skin happens to be dark.5) Vast discontentment with the economy, including massive layoffs and losses in jobs, now being laid at the feet of present government desperately trying to turn things around.6) Increasing discontent with Afghan war and America's participation in it.7) Discontentment with movement of jobs and manufacturing overseas.

Pretty potent mix, isn't it?

Personally, I think points 1-4 have little to do with it.There has always been partisan bickering.People's political moods are always most influenced by their pocketbooks.I think it's that we're in a deep recession, with the only option that is constantly pushed in our face by the "gov't" is more gov't.It ain't working.We've had 80 years of "more gov't" and that's what put us here.

Einstein quote: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result".

Throwing more money that we don't have at it isn't going to "fix the mess".The "more gov't" policies need to stop, and repeal the ones we have.

A very good start is HR1207, which calls to audit the Federal Reserve.The Federal Reserve can't stand an audit. It's a fraudulent corrupt organization that enjoys a gov't-protected monopoly on money and monetary policy, without oversight.Currently, HR1207 has co-sponsors which comprise more than 2/3 of all the Representatives in the House. That is a "veto proof" majority.If we can get similar support in the Senate, then Obama can't stop it.That's the first step to dissolving the Federal Reserve, and that's one thing that's drastically needed for fiscal sanity to prevail.

Well Ace, one can talk about "mood" and "condition" - two different things which may be related, but aren't necessarily. Frankly, I don't know enough about the Fed to dispute what you are saying. We have a 'Reserve Bank" here, government run, and I suppose its function, as well as the one there is to try to even out money supply and control interest rates. Whether this is a good thing or not I don't know, but I don't think you can put the cause of all the problems at the Fed's doorstep - many other factors must be involved.

The 'mood' is being stirred up and much of the stirring seems to be artificial in that some of it is an attempt to denigrate the Presidency.

What isn't in dispute is what we can see going on. what is in dispute is the means of firming up and improving the economy.

Combining a few thoughts on this and other threads, along with a bit of history, the reason we see so much government involved is the need found early to balance out the boom and bust cycles of businesses by adding a more constant government aspect, (including government employment). Thus, when some say that the government should stay completely out of things, they simply cannot know what effects this would have. Would it be an even more radical feast of famine type of thing? As businesses rose and failed, would there be even more ghost towns?

What it seems is that looking to move the economy completely away from any government type interventions into a pure laissez faire type of business environment would place our country on a very rocky road, such as existed early on. Whether the Fed is doing its job properly is a question separate from whether the Fed should be doing a regulatory job that it was apparently originated to provide. There are two sides to the coin, one side business, one side government, and they should be balanced to provide a good result.

Well, let's see now.Prior to the Federal Reserve System, we had sound money of gold and silver coin, and bills redeemable for same, at the same face value.The money was worth the same in 1792 as it was in 1912. No inflation or loss of purchasing power of the money.

Since 1913 and the introduction of the Fed, the currency has lost approximately 95% of its purchasing power. In other words, a dollar today has about the purchasing power of a nickel in 1913.We've had our 2 worst depressions ever, and boom and bust cycles averaging about every 2-5 years. And many trillions of debt, and tens of trillions of debt in future mandated spending.

I can't quite put myself in the picture of before the turn of the 19th century. I do know there was a severe recession in the 1890s lasting into the first decade of the 20th. There was then a degree of self-reliance the like of which it is hard to imagine now, and there was severe advantage taken of labor. The value of the dollar seems somewhat inconsequential if wages increase along with it. At the turn of the century we were really just getting into industrialization so that the work place became far more important than the largely rural and agricultural system before that, so really I don't think it is quite fair to judge what might have been.

But even with farming, there was the cyclical over production that cost such pain early in the 20th century. and on into the Great Depression. Perhaps agribusiness was rearing its head.

As to the Great Depression and the recessions we are and have seen, the increase in business over the self reliant family farms previously, has meant larger boom or bust periods. What these would have been like without gov. intervention is difficlut to judge, I should think.

So the two periods (before Fed and after Fed) aren't quite comparable,; the inferences you draw, Ace, may or may not be valid ones. The movement from the farms into cities, the probable increase in consumerism, massive wars, industrialization etc. must be factored in.

Certainly, governments haven't done as good a job as they might have, based on hind-sight, but that doesn't mean that if they had performed up to snuff, things would have been as bad.

Well, I think it is instructive to first understand that the Federal Reserve is NOT a government organization.It is often called a "quasi-gov't" organization, due to the fact that it has an appointed chief of its Board of Governors, and it "reports" to the Congress once a year, and that is called "oversight".The Federal Reserve has NEVER been audited to verify what it reports.

What the Federal Reserve actually is, amounts to a private cartel of bankers, who own privately-owned banks and have shareholders, They are a private business entity, which could fall under the rubric of "big business".What they have is a gov't-granted monopoly on the money and monetary policy of the USA. This allows a private group of bankers to dictate exactly what the US money supply and policies will be.

To make matters worse, they have implemented a fiat-currency, and have left the realm of sound money. And they have instituted a "fractional reserve" system,which allows them to lend 10x more money than they have, in order to make more interest profits. Since interest payments is their main profit, they are inclined to make as many loans as possible, and strive to loan out as much of that 10x more than they have, to maximize their profit potentials. And, since they are in direct control of every dollar that comes into the money supply, and make interest profit off of every dollar that comes into the money supply, they are in the position to make money from the entire US money supply, just by virtue of having that monopoly. Every single dollar that is printed or computer-generated in ledgers, every single dollar in this nation has an interest debt attached to it. It's called the "Fed Rate". You "buy" dollars from them with an interest payment automatically attached to it. There are NO dollars which aren't loaned into existence with debt attached. NONE.

So, we now see that this isn't a "gov't agency" at all.We see that this is a private banking cartel that has been granted an exclusive monopoly on ALL money in the USA.They might claim to have "gov't oversight", but no oversight actually occurs. No audits occur. They generate the inflation that we see every year, all by themselves, by increasing the money supply to further increase their profit taking by interest charges.Except they loan money that they don't have, so they don't have to have the money to loan. They just create the money out of thin air, and loan it out by their "fractional reserve" methods. This allows them to generate huge interest sums from money they don't even have.And the money is "backed" by the "full faith and credit of the USA" , so that if they fail, they aren't on the hook for anything, but the people are.

The entire thing is a scam, and the original Federal Reserve was created and is still presently owned and operated by the very people that you seem to be concerned about. Rockefeller, Morgan, Schiff, Loeb, Lehman, etc.ALL of these people were/are the "robber barons" that made up the late 19th century magnates that oppressed labor, as you like to point out.So, I find it interesting that you might see virtue in these "robber barons" owning a private monopoly on the US monetary system.A money system which was originally founded on sound money that can't be inflated, and wasn't generating interest profits to monopoly bankers, and the authority to "delegate" that monetary power to a group of private banking tycoons was NOT granted to Congress by the Constitution.

And in the UK the whole of our dubious, over geared, financial apparatus looked like it was about to blow apart 18 months ago - which may have had a good side as well as a bad side. Then the Government stepped in and "rescued" the whole rotten mess. It has settled back to pretty much what it was before and the bad guys have mostly kept their comfy jobs - except loans are only available to ordinary people at rip-off interest rates, despite near zero base rates.

I am starting to think that it would have been better if the whole thing had collapsed. The alternative is like somebody avoiding being sick after they have eaten a bad meat pie. Getting it all up might have been better than that unending queasy feeling.

And in the UK the whole of our dubious, over geared, financial apparatus looked like it was about to blow apart 18 months ago - which may have had a good side as well as a bad side. Then the Government stepped in and "rescued" the whole rotten mess. It has settled back to pretty much what it was before and the bad guys have mostly kept their comfy jobs - except loans are only available to ordinary people at rip-off interest rates, despite near zero base rates.

I am starting to think that it would have been better if the whole thing had collapsed. The alternative is like somebody avoiding being sick after they have eaten a bad meat pie. Getting it all up might have been better than that unending queasy feeling.

I am betting on a double dip recession.

Oh, I agree!

It would have been much better to let it collapse.When the market needs to correct, it is going to correct.Any attempt to manipulate it is going to result in a much more brutal correction later.One that is so big that they will not have capacity to manipulate.And then instead of a few years of depression that we would have had with the correction, and then a recovery, we will have a total economic collapse that will end the nation.Perhaps that's what they are aiming to do.

If that is the case, that the Fed is quasi-government and making huge profits on their system, then obviously it needs to be examined, an audit, or audits done, and determination made as to how the who thing goes together.

But that is only part of the system, the ultimate goal being to maintain prosperous business practices, regardless of who is making a profit. If the Fed banks are making a profit, that seems fine as long as they are helping the system, if not, then obviously the whole thing needs either to go or to be modified.

I thought I would resuscitate this thread again so as to empty my head of gloomy thoughts regarding the economic situation.

In the UK the politicians are being pushed towards the edge of a cliff. Pretty soon the mega-money that was paid out in order to keep the greedy incompetents who wrecked the economy comfortable is going to have to be recovered from public expenditure budgets.

This situation is amazingly bad. In fact it is so bad that it transcends the traditional, low-tax-versus-high-tax squabble that goes on between left and right political parties. Neither side can claim superiority for their fiscal principles when the end game is that they have been complicit in swilling the tax take down the drain.

Whether it should be lean or lavish becomes something of a moot point.

In trying to preserve the pre-recession status quo they have unwittingly undermined the whole ethical justification for redistributive taxation. God help us if they really get busy.

I think they have basically smashed up the toy box; now nobody can play.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall. This other shoe apparently isn't a nebulous thing in that banks have another series of loan problems coming due the higher rates for teaser loans, different from sub-par, and still at teaser levels, but all due to rise in the coming three years, and then the commercial loans.

The government and Wall Street are acting optimistic, but are they putting their money where their mouths are? The big guys will want to suck the small investors in for purely profit motives (commissions etc.) while they can get out quickly, leaving the small guy holding the bag. But then that has become the pattern - small guy left holding!!!

If it is that bad in the UK, then it is bound to spill over in the U.S. or has it spilled the other way already? Is that what we are seeing in the U.K.

Meanwhile the story of the gov. worker in Kentucky, hanged with 'Fed' scratched across his chest. An innocent, to be sure, but it does cause me to wonder. What the hell is going on? It is a little like Civil War times, maybe the South trying to rise again???

In the UK the politicians are being pushed towards the edge of a cliff. Pretty soon the mega-money that was paid out in order to keep the greedy incompetents who wrecked the economy comfortable is going to have to be recovered from public expenditure budgets.

I think they have basically smashed up the toy box; now nobody can play.

Yep, sad state of affairs. Kinda reminds me of the plight of the Colonist.